Social Technology: Part 4 – The Future

Let me begin tonight’s post by saying, if you haven’t read Part 1, 2 or 3, please do so before continuing!

In previous posts of this series, I have talked an awful lot about social technology in relation to current generations and past generations, but I have yet to touch upon the potential future if trends continue. After researching the topic, it is clear to me that while social technology does a lot of good, it is also causing some very negative effects on us as a society. If trends continue, one can only wonder what the future will hold…

Your grandchildren Michael and Andrea are sitting in their iChairs when all of a sudden Andrea experiences some discomfort in her lower back.
“Siri” she says in an agitated manner, “set firmness to 75”
“Acknowledged” The chair adjusts in 3 seconds.
“This iChair takes way too long to adjust, Michael. You should have told Mom to buy me the iChairS for Christmas.” Michael rolls his eyes. He is using his new Google Glass 3 to search for new hiking gear.
“What do you think about these?” Michael asks Andrea as he jerks his head suddenly in Andreas direction, prompting his view to show up on Andrea’s screen.
” Those look great, but have pretty bad reviews, how about these?” Andrea repeats the motion.
“Guess I’ll try them both. Send both. Confirm”
30 minutes later, a thud is heard at the doorstep as Michael’s package has arrived thanks to Amazon Prime Air.
“About freaking time. I just about keeled over with boredom from waiting so long!” Michael whined. He proceeded to try on both pairs of boots, decided on one, and sent the other pair back with the Amazon drone.

Back away slowly kids

This is a very realistic scenario! This technology will make comfort and purchases easier than ever to manage and take hardly any time at all… but the children of that generation will never know what it is like to have to wait 2-5 days (or more) for a package to arrive at your doorstep. This is an inevitable occurrence among all generations though, so it’s up to us to instill modesty into our children and keep them humble by remembering the past.

Nope, not scary or anything

I would not be surprised if “hanging out” with friends will eventually turn into teens on video chats like Google Hangout in their rooms all day. Physical Interactivity will become a thing of the past, or at least you will begin to see much less of it! With all of this ease-of-use technology being released in the coming years, the humans from Wall-E come to mind.

Let’s not let it get THIS bad, eh?

No one wants a robot apocalypse. There would be all kinds of violence and shooting and death and…okay that sounds kind of cool, but let’s keep hoping for our apocalypse to come with zombies and not machines. Zombies are much easier to kill. But then again….

Brilliant

This has been a very fun series to conceptualize! What are your thought on the future and what it may hold for us and our children?